Messaien

Last week, what has become a rare visit to St. Luke's, their programmes having gone off the boil as far as I am concerned. Possibly reflecting loss of subsidy from central funds?

Bullingdons

Bad start, with the map of Bullingdon bike stations very slow on my laptop at home, splendid Internet connection notwithstanding. Slow to the point of not usable. Notwithstanding, just made it to the station for the 1104, just as it was cancelled. So opted for Victoria and change at Clapham Junction, which worked well enough. Didn't fancy cycling from Clapham Junction, although I probably had time.

The many  building sites in the Vauxhall area sported many cranes and much machinery - but very little action that I could see. No men doing stuff, this despite it being mid morning. Where were they all - it seeming a bit late for the morning break and a bit early for the noon break.

Roads seemed quiet too and I had a good run to Roscoe Street, with only one real wait at the Ludgate Circus lights and not many infractions by other cyclists. More than 18 minutes for this first hop, longer than I remember, although actually slightly shorter than the time recorded in January at reference 2. But memory not completely degenerate as it was indeed longer than the 16 minutes recorded in October last year at reference 3.

The bacon sandwich café was doing reasonably well, but not as well at Whitecross Street outside. The street food and the sun were winning the crowd trade. Bacon sandwich well up to its usual high standard though. Booze was delivered to the café from the restaurant - under the same ownership - across the road, leading me to wonder about the small print of the relevant licenses. Perhaps we are getting more relaxed about such things, after the fashion of the coal shops mentioned in the last post.

Messaien

St. Luke's pretty full by the time I got there and Fiona turned out to do her introduction, mercifully not too long and not involving painful interchanges with the musicians - Sara Ott and friends giving us Messaien's 'Quartet for the End of Time'. This last being the draw: I don't think I have ever heard any of Messaien's music, no trace in the blog, but I had heard of this work.

Messaien's church

Some rather irritating young students from the US to my right, with the young lady next to me taking notes, with each spell of note taking marked by her fiddling with her biro. But not quite irritating enough for me to try to check her. Perhaps because the music was very good: odd, but good, and despite the generally apocalyptic tone, oddly playful in parts. Very French I thought.

The clarinettist, Dmitri Ashkenazy, has an interesting pedigree, being born in Iceland in 1969 to the pianist Ashkenazy and his Icelandic wife, and subsequently becoming domiciled in Switzerland. I only know the pianist, other than a name, vinyl.

Afterwards, off to London Bridge and the Borough Market branch of my cheese shop to top up on Lancashire Poacher. One minor infraction on my part in that I did a right into somewhere near the Bank of England which was not permitted, but which stopped me getting lost in the roads around the north end of London Bridge.

And then off to Kennington, which started off well enough, passing through lots of interesting streets and buildings which I had largely forgotten, but managing to get more or less lost, although I was heading roughly in the right direction. Perhaps I was getting a bit dehydrated, not having taken my picnic at this point.

Terminus

Chickened out after a marginal 25 minutes at Caldwell Street, a short walk short of Stockwell with it large Bullingdon stand outside. My memory was that this is exactly the same as what happened last time I tried to cycle from London Bridge to Kennington, but cannot this morning trace any record of that.

War memorial then

War memorial now

Took my picnic in front of the war memorial at Stockwell, with the memorial being respectful enough in itself, but rather marred by the graffiti covered walls of what might be a ventilation shaft for the underground. With the snap above suggesting the local population took the thing seriously enough when it was first built, despite my now associating to lots of the first world war veterans agitating for useful memorials like village halls, rather than chunks of dead masonry.

With thanks to reference 4 for the two snaps above, the second dating to before the current graffiti. Don't think it was red poppies; rather something neither respectful nor related.

Plenty of Muslim school girls milling about, schools just being out. Mainly black and black hooded, presumably with African rather than West Indian roots.

Onto a crowded tube train, with the crowd leaving at Balham. I left at Tooting Broadway to climb the sixty odd stairs, which made me puff a bit, not having had an opportunity to climb the stairs up out of Vauxhall for a while.

Haul from Oxfam

Off to the usually book-productive Oxfam shop, going past a busy looking Tooting (indoor) Market. All fooderies like Brixton Market now? Scored two books at Oxfam, both at 99p. One a tasteful picture book about north Devon, aka the Lorna Doone country, with a forward by no less a person than Lord Gorell, CBE, MC, not a local, and featuring several places which we have visited ourselves. For example, Heddon Valley and its deserted beach, far right in the snap above. At least, it was deserted when we were there. The other, a small picture book about Finland, put together by a Brit who married a Finn. Which reminded me that Finland manages to have egalitarian but world class education, something which is increasingly eluding us here in the UK. Perhaps our institutions are worn out, like our industry - but much easier for new countries like Finland to move on. They might make a song and dance about their racial baggage, but are not weighed down with quite as much political baggage as we are. Better able to start over.

I noticed that the Young's pub, the 'Castle', across the road, has now colonised their yard out back with a large beer & smoking garden, busy on this Friday afternoon. A far cry from the wind-swept couple of benches outside that I used to know in my smoking days.

Nasty looking accident at the Broadway, not long before I got back to it. Fire engine blocking the southbound Colliers Wood road, sundry other emergency services vehicles. But not so serious as to block the entrance to Wetherspoon's, moderately busy. I got the impression that they did not sell so much Villa Maria - despite being the place that put me onto it - as it took the barman some time to work out where it was kept.

Ambience much more neighbourhood bar than many of the larger Wetherspoons. Brown wood décor more or less unchanged in the thirty years or so that I have been visiting the place. New slot machine, looking as if it might run under Windows, rather than some specialised gaming machine system, unused all the time that I was there. Television on, but not intrusive. Old soaks' table still there, although we had new occupants since my last visit, more than a year ago. Oddly, Doombar was cheaper at £2 a pint, than Fuller's at £3 - with my memory of such matters being that I preferred the former. While I also remember that they used to do a decent Theakston's beer at £1 for many years. Mind you, this was all at around 1700. Might not have been so clever later on.

Panoramic seat on the 44 bus to Earlsfield, scoring the odd aeroplane on the way. But despite the good viewing conditions, only managed a couple one ones, nudging twos, from the platform at the station. Not helped by the fact that I had forgotten where the best place to stand was, giving good views both east and west. Consolation prize in the form of a few swifts - although even at the time I was not sure why I was so sure about the tweet. Perhaps the distinctive flight?

Somewhere along the way, probably prompted by ladies on their way to a night out, to think about the interesting tension generated by flashy dressy by ladies. The whole point was to look, but if you looked too much you got bashed by the boy friend - something which used to happen in TB in the years before I got there. Or if you looked in the wrong way, you might annoy them. All the tricky things we are supposed to learn in the course of adolescence.

Fast train to Epsom, so no visit to the Raynes Park platform library. Some compensation in the form of being told all about Ramadan by my taxi driver at Epsom, with a timetable for same having been posted at reference 6. The story was that the taxi driver could manage nil by mouth from around 0400 in the morning to 2100 at night, when he went home to Sutton for something to eat and drink. Then out again for the late evening shift which, at weekends, ran until around 0400. He also explained that Ramadan was desirable but not essential, and it was quite OK for people with a reasonable excuse not to do it. And he agreed that it was a useful form of community bonding.

PS: according to Wikipedia, Messiaen was titular organist for 61 years at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, snapped above. One supposes that while he may have experimented with his music, he did not experiment with his faith in the Lord.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Messiaen.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/chopin-preludes.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/ultimate-luke.html.

Reference 4: http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2014/11/stockwell-war-memorial-and-mural-stockwell-south-london/.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Barnes,_3rd_Baron_Gorell.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/czech-songs.html.